The Desert Safari desert camp experience (with videos)

In my last couple of posts I discussed the buggy rides and dune bashing experiences in Dubai. To conclude the journey in this post I will take you through the evening camp event.
After the sun down we settled into the evening camp for an evening filled with a short performance and dinner. The camp has a restroom area, and some stalls for food, henna, and hookah facilities for the visitor. As is the case all over Dubai, you are treated like a VIP if you have the money. The more the money you pay, the better the treatment. This is evident in everything – from the vehicles that get you to the camp, to the food offered, to the seating, to special photographs with eagles, etc. The food for VIPs is unlimited and is served at the place you are seated, and typically with a quanity much more than you need.

It is all about satisfying guests as per what they pay but I sincerely wish the people providing all these facilities do think of the needy as well. I am a strong believer that food must not be wasted and the situation at the desert camp is somewhat on the contrary.

Performances (fire and belly dance)

Coming to the performances, there were two performances one by a male and the other one by a female. The dance by the male was something involving colourful clothes and tricks with fire – the whole stage is lit up with the light and its a spectacle to watch and enjoy. There is a lot of spinning in the dance and also doing lots of tasks when that goes on which is in itself not so easy a task. You can take a look at the video below

The performance by the female is also one of the main reasons people sign up for the camp evening event – the famous belly dance. And for those of you who think it is very sexy and the likes – let me tell you one thing – it is simply not easy for a normal person to do this dance. Even for the talented in this field it is an enormous level of energy burn and the level of composure and fitness needed to finish off with this for a whole 15-20 minutes is nothing short of humongous. You can take a look at a part of the dance in the video below. One look at the hair spin the lady gives will give you a dizzy feeling.

Food options

As you would have guessed, the food options for vegetarians is pretty minimal. At best there is the sweet (like a jamun) dipped in date sauce. Add some salads made from veggies, and some really bad mixed rice (not the biryani types) and of course Pepsi/coke & some dessert in the desert that gets over even before it starts being served! You know what I’m talking about now.

Toilet facilities

In one word : SAD.
In many words the toilets aren’t maintained properly. There doesn’t seem to be proper drainage system making the whole place stink. It’s really bad and the management of the place can certainly look for better bio toilet options.

Other facilities

There are other things to do at the camp. Like a bit of camel ride, or smoking some hookah. Plenty of coke on the floor. If you are willing to pay more you get corn etc. There are obviously some mehndi stalls which help you to sport some good designs on your hands or feet. There are also photo opps with Arabic clothing which would cost you a bomb.

Conclusions

The entire desert safari experience is a one off experience that will let you enjoy the desert in its raw and full glory. It will give you a glimpse of some fantastic buggy riding, some scintillating dune bashing that’ll leave you mesmerised. Further the glorious sunsets and the evening performances will leave you dazzled at the end of the journey. Although you will be tired while returning home, rest assured these set of adventures will be etched in your memory forever.

The desert safari sand dune bashing experience – an event that you willforever remember!

Some history …

In my previous post you would have read about the buggy ride experience that we had at the Desert Safari tour. The day continued towards the late afternoon when the sun went down a bit and after the buggy rides, we rode our hummer onward to the dune bashing area.

Dune bashing landscape

When you reach a certain region of the desert you can notice that the landscape automatically changes to drifting sands which form small mounds and the whole region looks a bit hilly with some small mounds leading to larger bigger slopes. By the time our earlier buggy ride was over, the driver had by then reduced the air/nitrogen in the tyres of our hummer substantially which made the car adaptable to being driven in the sand.

With lesser air/nitrogen in the tyres the hummer suddenly swerved from the main highway right into the sand dunes. And before we knew it, the famous “Boushret Kheir” song from Hussain Al Jassmi, the Arab world’s proclaimed artist, was rocking the hummer already. And then began the roller coaster ride.

For first timers this would be nerve wracking a bit, but you must understand that these drivers drive here every single day of the year mostly and they are extremely well trained.

All you need to do, just like me is to hold on to the vehicle and enjoy the ride. Of course I was terrified of having a slide into the sand mounds on the hummer and I did not get a chance to drive it either due to obvious reasons of safety. But then after few seconds it was just pure joy. Up and down and up and down a convoy of our hummer with a few other Toyota land cruisers dotted the sand dune landscape for a whole 10-15 minutes till we cried in joy just wanting more of that over and over again.

Sunset point

After the mood changing sand dune bashing was over we reached what is known as a sun set point. Here we can spend a while to see the sun go down although we needed to get away before it became too dark lest we could not see where we were going.

It is not recommended to drive here alone during night and it is very easy for someone to get lost here. And without food or water you are inviting trouble. At this sunset point, we can see how the wind shifts the sands from one place to another. If you are the types who enjoys the small things in life then you will enjoy this.

Camel camp

From here we drove to the camel camp where we spent a while looking at camels feeding and being taken care of. It is not much of stuff to see but you do get to see a camp overlooking the highway from where you can see stunning desert sunsets like nowhere else.

After this most interesting drive was done, the hummer tyres were inflated again to full capacity and we made our way to the final part of the evening – the desert safari camp for an evening filled with food and performances. Look forward to my next post where I will bring to you glimpses of those events!

Stunning views of the sunset across the highway …

The Desert Safari Quad Bike (Buggy) Experience, Dubai – Sun, Sand, & Fun + Do’s and Dont’s during the trip

General information

Any country is well known for its traditional attractions and Dubai is no exception. Being a desert country what better way is it to enjoy Dubai than a visit to the desert. Authentic experiences of sand, sun, camels, dance and some fun! The desert safari camp is about 89km from Dubai international airport and can vary slightly based on where you start from on your itinerary.

This is a post noon desert tour experience so if you wish to allocate time, find a day when you can get up late, have a late lunch and be ready to leave for this trip. There are lots of travel agents who organize special vehicles for this trip for you, so it should not be difficult for you to find one by looking on the internet.

Since you will be dune bashing, this needs a sophisticated car/SUV to handle that kind of terrain. Typical tours are undertaken with Toyota land cruiser Prado 4×4 SUVs. I did see some Fortuners and was even fortunate to have got a Hummer myself

Buggy Rides

The Safari ride has two parts, first they take you to a quadricycle ride where you can experience driving quadricycle or quad bikes as they call them in sandy terrain. This gets the thrill started for you which culminates in the actual dune bashing across few kilometers of sand dunes. Typically if you leave reasonably early you will reach the quad biking point accordingly. The safari motor rides is itself a good one hour from DXB international airport and is located in Nazwa/Margham area (in sharjah)

There are two or three people who provide quad bikes including Al Badayer, Sahara Amusement and golden desert motorcycle rentals. We had been to Sahara. We reached there by about 3pm which was the right time. There were hardly anyone and the sun was slowly going down. The temperatures remained hot so its preferable to carry a hat, wear sunglasses and choose comfortable cotton clothing as needed. These are called buggy rides and there are lots of buggies to cater to everyone’s needs. The management understands pretty well that this is one of the major attractions so they have done everything possible to keep the supply stocked so no one is left high and dry.

Duration and Driving conditions

The ride itself is for about 30 minutes and the buggies use a lot of gas to ride on. No matter how much of driving you have done, do not assume that riding a buggy is easy. It presents its own challenges and kids MUST be accompanied by adults. When you are with kids drive safely. Its rare that a buggy would fall down completely since its on four wheels. But I did have a tricky situation where it got stuck in the mud and I had to wait for the helpful guys to arrive to remove me from that situation. The buggy also tends to veer slightly to one direction so its not that you point the handle straight and it may go stright indeed. Due to sand it can be tricky to ride this.

Cost of the rides & cautionary instructions

The buggy rides cost 250 AED for 30 mintues. And no you are in tough luck if you provide your credit card as everything is only on CASH basis. Luckily for us our driver had the cash so I loaned that amount from him. There are absolutely no ATMs or major shops there so its best you pack everything you need upfront including cash. Further the shops at the quad bike point are super expensive and even a tender coconut can cost 20 AED which is ridiculous – its nearly 400 bucks which is 4x costlier than the costliest coconut in India possible 🙂

Instructions for buggy use

Some general terms of the buggy use

30 minutes of ride
people only for the ride
Adults can take kids behind them
Changing people is not allowed so you need to choose the 2 people who will go on a buggy and do 30 minutes of that because depending on how many people you go with so many buggies are utilized which is a cash cow for the management
You can take photos wherever you wish to just ensure that not many people are around riding their own buggies

TIPS and words of caution for better preparedness for the ride

On some negotiation the management agrees you can swap people. So I drove with my wife for sometime, then swapped each of my two kids for the next ten minutes each. But by the time I was 25 minutes into the ride, I was actually fed up.
The buggy moves forward when you press a lever like the horn you have on local two wheelers in india and this causes a lot of finger pain after 25 minutes of ride. You need thumbs of steel to use this stuff
Post 4PM there are enormous number of buggies around you including various sized ones – 2 pax, 4 pax etc. These generate a lot of petrol fumes all around so you can feel nauseated pretty soon
After your drive, go wash your face in that makeshift toilet, sit in the lawn and see other buggies ride around – that is the best thing to do
If you get stuck in the mud, raise your hand and someone will come and help you, if you feel like the vehicle will topple, get down from the vehicle
When you are stuck, dont raise the accelerator else there will be lots of mud that will thrown on your back and head sometimes into your eyes as well – please be careful about this part
Carry plenty of juice or water for yourself and keep it in your car – it will come in handy after some bit of buggy riding, plus you can save yourself some cash even!

If you liked this post, I will bring to you in my next post the Sand Dune Bashing experience !
Leave me your comments below on what you feel, and subscribe to my blog.

A journey to Sheikh Zayed Mosque, Abu Dhabi (plus tips on do’s and dont’s while visiting the place)

Introduction to the monument

We landed in Dubai via Oman Air pretty early into the morning. If you wish to read about that experience, you can click here. Most of the next morning was taking rest due to a lengthy and unnecessary air travel which I will explain in another blog post.

The Sheikh Zayed Mosque is about a 45 minutes drive from the Dubai International Airport, it is located at Abu Dhabi which is the capital city of United Arab Emirates.

We went on an afternoon drive with a private vehicle to the mosque. At the time of arrival there were not many people there and we could get parking pretty easily but the fact remains that too in the evening hours getting parking could be a bit troublesome.

There are a lot of people who visit the mosque in the evening and the place gets pretty crowded there. Still there is ample space around the mosque and it never feels very congested.

Features of the mosque

This Mosque can sometimes hold up to more than 41000 people for prayers at any given point of time. This Mosque is well known for its minarets and the architectural beauty it encompasses through its construction.

Built between 1996 and 2007 this mosque was designed by a Syrian architect, and employed about 3000 people and 38 companies to complete the construction.

World’s largest carpet

The carpet in the main prayer hall is supposedly over 60000 square feet in dimension. The carpet itself took around two years to complete and was done by more than 1000 workers.

The world’s third largest chandelier

This Mosque has seven imported chandeliers from Germany including the world’s largest that incorporates millions of Swarovski crystals.

The chandeliers are awe inspiring and people usually slow down to spend some time staring at the beauty of the architecture. At one point in the hall all the three chandeliers can be seen one behind the other.

Highlights about the mosque

The minarets of the mask and the central courtyard make the mask and astounding beauty to look from far away. No matter whichever angle you are looking at it from, you can never seem to get enough of seeing the mosque.

There are wide walkways with small lights on both sides which illuminate the pathway during the night. There is also an area where there are small fountains which make it very nice to see and spend some time around, specifically for kids.

As you enter the main hall there are cupboards and shelves where you can leave your footwear before going inside (socks are permitted). In general most people maintain silence and are busy with photography since photos are allowed within the mosque as an exception.

There are toilets around the mosque and specifically facilities for women are better.

Photographic opportunities

This monument presents a lot of photographic opportunities for the photo enthusiast. The gardens & the fountains lighting the monument with the sky behind, the afternoon and night views of this mosque and a view of the mosque from the highway are some excellent photographic opportunities.

You don’t really need an SLR for enjoying all of this even a mobile camera would suffice. All photos of this mosque in this blog post are taken with the Samsung Galaxy S7, the best in the camera department (until the Google Pixel trumped it)

One can easily spend up to two hours in this environment enjoying the beauty of the place.

Do’s and don’ts while visiting this mosque

It is important to bear in mind some of the regulations before entering his mask so that you are not surprised when you arrive there. This part of the blog post will try to explain as much as possible how to be prepared while going to see this place.

[ ] security: since this is a monument of national importance there is a layer of security around the mosque and at the mosque entrance which you need to clear before entering inside. The security will do a baggage scan and also offer the traditional burqahs so that people can cover themselves completely.
[ ] it is essential that women are covered from head to toe and as long as you are wearing a dress which is like that it should be okay. Even for Men shorts are NOT permitted and it is preferable that you wear full pants and shirts. It’s not really clear when the people at the security might ask you questions about your dressing but generally if you are fully covered it should be fine.
[ ] Women do get all sizes of burqah at security entry point so it is not a big deal to be worried about.
[ ] as far as I understood food is not allowed into the mosque so it’s OK to just carry a water bottle or so with yourself and keep the rest of the food in your car for later.
[ ] Since the whole visit is going to take less than two hours you are not going to be so tired that you need food very often.
[ ] there are no entry fees for getting into this mosque it’s free for everybody.
[ ] try to follow the queue system as much as possible where applicable and try to remain silent while going about taking photographs. This whole place is very elegant when it is silent and you should enjoy the beauty in such a situation rather than making noise.
[ ] stop by the lawns or the fountains and take some rest by sitting down whereever you feel like nearby.
[ ] don’t forget to see the carpet and the Chandeliers, these are most important parts of the inside of the Mosque.
[ ] you can leave between 2 and 3 p.m from Dubai so that it’s a good one hour drive to reach the mosque
[ ] sometimes the mosque may be crowded so be patient
[ ] you will not be allowed to go into the central area of the Courtyard so stay away from there and just follow the pathways. There are plenty of photo Ops even there among the pathways
[ ] as far as possible do not touch any part of the monument but just enjoy the beauty while walking past.
[ ] inside the main prayer hall it is extremely important for women to keep their head covered and hence they should ensure that the clothing does not fall of the head to avoid reminders from the staff. It is against the religion for women to show the head within the prayer hall so please take care of this and stay clear of this controversy.
[ ] it is essential that you keep moving forward from the entrances as there are enough places to stand and take photos from rather than crowd the entrance itself.
[ ] finally when you exit the mosque it is likely that lot of people have come in so you need to remember where you put your car in order to find it more easily.
[ ] when you exit you are supposed to give back the clothing given by the staff upon entry.
[ ] in general when questioned by the staff be courteous and be specific with your answers.
[ ] the big bus abu dhabi has a stop here in case you are opting to come by bus so they have you covered for this destination.

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